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Are Professional Macroeconomic Forecasters Able To Do Better Than Forecasting Trends?

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  • MICHAEL P. CLEMENTS
Abstract
This paper investigates whether survey forecasters are able to make more accurate forecasts than simply supposing that the future values of the variable will move monotonically to the long‐run expectation. We consider the forecasts individually, and the consensus forecasts. Consensus survey forecasts are able to do so to varying degrees depending on the variable, but this ability is largely limited to forecasts of the current quarter.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael P. Clements, 2015. "Are Professional Macroeconomic Forecasters Able To Do Better Than Forecasting Trends?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(2-3), pages 349-382, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:47:y:2015:i:2-3:p:349-382
    DOI: 10.1111/jmcb.12179
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Clements, Michael P., 2019. "Do forecasters target first or later releases of national accounts data?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1240-1249.
    2. Bespalova, Olga, 2018. "Forecast Evaluation in Macroeconomics and International Finance. Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA," MPRA Paper 117706, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Clements, Michael P. & Reade, J. James, 2020. "Forecasting and forecast narratives: The Bank of England Inflation Reports," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1488-1500.
    4. Ye, Wuyi & Guo, Ranran & Deschamps, Bruno & Jiang, Ying & Liu, Xiaoquan, 2021. "Macroeconomic forecasts and commodity futures volatility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 981-994.
    5. Benjamin Beckers & Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Dirk Ulbricht, 2017. "Reading between the Lines: Using Media to Improve German Inflation Forecasts," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1665, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, 2022. "Forecast Revisions as Instruments for News Shocks," International Finance Discussion Papers 1341, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Nibbering, Didier & Paap, Richard & van der Wel, Michel, 2018. "What do professional forecasters actually predict?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 288-311.
    8. Clements, Michael P., 2018. "Are macroeconomic density forecasts informative?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 181-198.
    9. Emmanuel C. Mamatzakis & Mike G. Tsionas, 2020. "Revealing forecaster's preferences: A Bayesian multivariate loss function approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 412-437, April.
    10. Clements, Michael P., 2016. "Long-run restrictions and survey forecasts of output, consumption and investment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 614-628.
    11. Clements, Michael P., 2021. "Rounding behaviour of professional macro-forecasters," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1614-1631.

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